


Joy

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, None - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair contemplates a life without.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joy

## Joy

by J.M. Griffin

Not mine. Sigh.

For my dear list-sibs at My Mongoose E-zine. May love and joy be yours this holiday season.

None

* * *

**JOY**  
by J. M. Griffin 

It had been such a weird year, Blair thought when he saw the first Christmas lights going up on the day after Thanksgiving. And now it was almost over, 1999, the most momentous year of his life so far. The afternoon was wet and cold, so Blair didn't linger to look at the lights, but made a mad dash from his car to the door of the apartment building. 

Jim wasn't home, but Blair was careful to hang his damp jacket on the hook by the door instead of tossing it across a kitchen chair. He went into the bathroom and nabbed a towel from the stack to dry his hair. He was letting it grow again and had to resist the urge to cut it now that it was at that awful in-between stage. Hanging the towel around his neck, he peered at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Somehow, he didn't look like himself anymore. It wasn't the hair, he thought. It was his eyes. They were no longer the eyes of a bright-eyed kid. Rather, they were the eyes of a man who had been through the crucible and come out the other side scorched, but alive. 

Blair closed his eyes and turned from the mirror. He didn't want to see the hollow look in those intense blue eyes. No, not tonight. Tonight he'd just sit in the loft and try to be glad he wasn't grading a mountain of papers as he waited for Jim to get home. He left the bathroom and sat down on the couch, but didn't turn on the TV. The rain was coming down even harder and the wind was whipping round the corner of the building, making a moaning sound that was downright eerie. 

With a sigh, Blair rested his head against the back of the couch. Life was a bitch these days. Oh, the day-to-day of it wasn't bad. He rode to work with Jim each day, then went his own way to Narcotics where he was partnered with a cop about the same age he was, but much older in experience. In another two months, Blair would be sprung from Narcotics and teamed with Jim as Simon had promised before Blair had entered the academy. It had been the Chief of Police's requirement that he spend six months with another division of the force before he could be partnered with Jim. And though at first they'd all protested, in retrospect it wasn't such a bad idea. When he did become Jim's partner, he could do it with confidence, knowing he could hold his own in a fire fight or raid. He would join Major Crimes with his detective's badge a bit grimy from use, not fresh and shiny as the day he received it. He'd never be the "kid' of the bull pen again. 

Frankly, he couldn't remember the last time someone called him "kid." Even Simon didn't do it anymore. Closing his eyes, Blair thought about the person he'd been last December. He hadn't been a kid then either, not really. Not since the day he'd come back to life beside a fountain on the campus at Rainier University. Not since he'd seen Jim with a female Sentinel clasped in his arms. Not since he'd thrown away his chance to be a Doctor of Anthropology as he stood in front of a television camera confessing to a lie that was the truth. 

He'd just been going through the motions since then, and he knew it. He'd done what they'd asked of him. What he knew Jim wanted him to do. But it brought him no joy. 

A tear slipped down Blair's face and he swiped at it angrily. God, he was such a fool. Had he really thought everything would turn up roses after all that mess? Had he actually been convinced he could be satisfied with being a cop? No, he hadn't been a kid when he made the decision to totally alter his life for the benefit of another person, but he had been a fool. 

But what had he expected? Had he truly thought Jim would suddenly see him for who he was, Guide, friend, lover and life partner? What on earth had he been doing dreaming that things could change? Just because he'd been through the flames, didn't mean Jim had. And so they lived together, alone, and they didn't talk much anymore, and slowly, slowly they were growing apart and it was killing Blair. Maybe it was time to go. 

Blair stood up abruptly, the awful thought propelling him to the balcony windows to stare out at the darkening sky. The rain had stopped, but the wind still whistled around the corners of the building. Christmas lights on the building across the street twinkled merrily, but all Blair could think of was there was nothing good in his life anymore. He didn't want to live like this. 

The door to the loft opened with a bang, and Jim swept in, taking off his coat after carefully closing the door behind him. Blair didn't move from his place in front of the big windows. 

"Blair? Chief, are you okay?" 

Maybe Jim saw Blair's somber expression in the reflection in the window pane, or maybe he smelled the salt of newly shed tears, because his voice was low and concerned as he came up behind Blair and just stood there hovering. 

And then it happened, Jim slipped his arms around Blair's shoulders and pulled him back against his flat, hard chest. Blair couldn't remember the last time he'd been held closely by the person he loved most in the world. And there was the rub. He loved Jim and he wanted more, much more, than just a life together in the loft, making do, making believe there might be more than friendship between them. Only a kid let make-believe direct his life. 

Blair started to turn, to pull away, but Jim just pressed Blair closer, resting his chin on the top of Blair's head, gazing at their reflection in the window. Blair found himself looking at Jim's face, at the man's light blue eyes, clear as the morning sky. Those eyes held something new, or at least something he had not seen there before. Suddenly the reflection wasn't enough and Blair turned quickly at the same time Jim released him just a bit. So he was face to face with Jim then, looking into the taller man's eyes to see if what he thought he'd seen was really there. 

Had he just missed it before? Was it that he had to be brought down so low to be able to see it? Blair didn't know, but it was suddenly clear as a bell ringing in the air what the look meant. Jim loved him. Blair opened his mouth to speak, to say something about what he was seeing. But Jim's face was moving in close, and then Jim was kissing him soundly. Blair kissed back because it was the only thing to do, and the best, truest thing he'd ever done. 

When they broke away from each other, breathless, reluctant to be more than an inch or two apart, Blair could feel an odd bubble forming in his chest. He opened his mouth, but no words came out, and Jim closed the space between them to kiss him again. 

It was during that second deeper, longer kiss that Blair realized the feeling welling up from deep inside him was joy. 

* * *

End Joy by J.M. Griffin: aeriejm@pdq.net

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